


This Isn't Your Burden to Bear

by DyeingRoses



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, I will update the tags/rating as I go, M/M, Major Character Injury, Rating changed for Language, Time Travel, this has a happy ending i swear
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-10
Updated: 2018-03-19
Packaged: 2019-03-29 14:22:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,285
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13928892
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DyeingRoses/pseuds/DyeingRoses
Summary: Keith has always felt that the universe had something against them.  First Kerberos, and literally everything that came after.  Shiro didn't deserve a second of this and Keith could see just how much damage had been wrought.If only there was some way to go back in time and take Shiro's place.





	1. Before the Fall

**Author's Note:**

> This started as a string of plot nonsense after seeing an amazing art on tumblr by pining-sheith and now it has turned into a full plot of nonsense. Updates will no doubt be sporadic but I hope to keep every chapter as interesting and well-written as the last. 
> 
> Anyway, enjoy!

Space was cold. Hard. Unforgiving.

But the stars were unfairly beautiful, and the way they danced across Shiro’s scarred face was even more of a sin. In the wash of purples, whites, and blues, Shiro suddenly seemed as remote as the sun was to Earth, leaving Keith revolving around him helplessly. It was days like this that he wished Shiro would still speak to him like he did in his cadet days. Anything, really.

Anything to make it seem like Shiro wasn’t leaving and not coming back.

The din and chatter of the Castle ran amok in Keith’s periphery, plans upon plans upon plans forming and falling in disarray. So close to victory against the Galra Empire but defeat slept just as close. Blades stood side by side with Paladins. Princess Allura, one of the last Alteans, spoke in deep conversation with the son of Zarkon himself.

It was the amalgamation of all they had fought for. Keith’s gaze drifted to the familiar green, yellow, blue in the crowd, finding the latter two huddled in a corner. Their smiles remained if forced at the edges, laughter still lighting up the room. Lance glanced up, a concerned question in his eyes and Keith bit down on his tongue to keep from answering. Instead, he simply shook his head and waved a hand at Hunk to waylay further inquiry.

Not the time, nor place.

He found Pidge with their family, back straight and eyes sharp and so very focused. Too focused, Keith realized belatedly as Pidge rounded on him. He raised his hands preemptively even as they wound their way through the throng of citizens turned soldiers to his side.

“What’s up?” Keith asked in hopes to stop their question before it even began. “Situation changed?”

Pidge stared him down and Keith couldn’t help but wonder when everyone of them had changed so dramatically. It felt so sudden despite the knowledge that every day, here at the edges of the universe, since that fateful day on Earth had twisted and shaped them into something almost new. The universe had made weapons of all them.

“What’s wrong?” Pidge demanded, point-blank and stubborn, and Keith reminisced that some things really didn’t change at all.

“It’s nothing.” He backpedaled immediately at the look it gained him. “Just a bad feeling.”

Pidge softened then, their sharp focus dropping to something more intimate. “I feel it too.” They confessed. “We’re missing something, I know we are.”

Shrugging, Keith reached out, hesitating only a moment before ruffling their air to an indignant scwuak. “You’ve turned over every piece of tech and non-digital piece of information we have. And we have the rest. There’s not much else we can do.”

His words made something twist in his chest and he found his gaze rising unbidden to Shiro once more, the Paladin’s back still outlined in the light of the stars and the holographic displays. It wasn’t subtle, and Pidge caught it without trying.

“After this over, can you promise something, Keith?”

He snapped his gaze back to them, brow rising in question. Sighing, Pidge tilted their head towards the command table and said, “Let him know after all of this?”

His stomach churned with the doubt that there would even be an after. “...I will.” What else would he have to lose at that point? “I will, Pidge.”

“Good.” And they promptly punched him in the arm, ignoring his muttering. “But we are almost ready to head out so grab him and bring him to the lounge, alright? Lance and Hunk will be there.”

Keith nodded and Pidge disappeared back into the crowd, leaving Keith alone with the command. Sure. Easy enough. Pushing off the wall, he quickly walked through his companions, his comrades in arms, pausing only once to smile and nod at a greeting. This was more important than pleasantries, his gut told him. He didn’t need to see the others’ faces to know that.

Behind the Black Paladin, Keith hesitated, hand outstretched for a second too long before it dropped to his side. He cleared his throat. Luckily, the sound was enough for Shirogane to glance back at the offender.

Stress had made sharp lines on Shiro’s face, just more souvenirs from the Galra. Only in his twenties and yet he seemed so much older with the burden he carried. It made Keith ache with the weight of it, with how much Shiro had lost to this fight. It seemed all the more evident when the ghost of a smile upturned Shiro’s lips, a parody of warmer days.

“Paladins are meeting up outside.” Keith said before Shiro could say anything and he belatedly wondered why Pidge hadn’t asked him to catch Allura too. “Pidge called in.”

Shiro eased out a breath and risked another look back at the displays swirling on the table of troops and troops and more troops. “Alright.” He conceded and stepped away from duty to Keith’s side.

The walk out was quiet, their footsteps hollow on the floor of the Castle. All the halls seemed so much more empty despite the people holding up inside. In the silence, it just felt more evident that they were nearing an end. Staring at Shiro only compounded that fact.

His weakness.

“Shiro, I…”

Shiro glanced down to him, concern first curiosity second, and Keith’s words died on his tongue.

“...What do you think Pidge wants?” He said instead, heart pounding, and Shiro shrugged.

“I hope it’s food.” Shiro joked and Keith rolled his eyes despite himself. “Standing around all day isn’t helping my stomach.”

Keith snorted. “Well, Hunk will be there so your wish might just come true.”

All too soon, their destination arrived, the doors closed. Keith expected Shiro to just walk in, so his surprise showed when Shiro paused and turned to face him. Head tilted to the side, Shiro stared at him, gaze suddenly unfathomable and the shadows fell on his scar in such a way that it looked like blood.

Whatever Shiro had intended to say, or do, he ultimately decided against it and settled on a smile that sent Keith’s heart aching anew. Don’t look like that. Don’t you dare say goodbye.

“Let’s get this over with then, Keith.” Shiro rested a hand on his shoulder, warm and heavy. It lasted only a breath too long but it was gone when Keith blinked. Shiro pushed the door open, disappearing into the lounge and leaving Keith standing there, something--not tears, God, not tears--biting at his eyes.

Goddamn you, Shiro.

This wasn’t going to be goodbye. It couldn't be.

And Keith would tear the universe apart if it was.


	2. What Started It All

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The final battle was upon Voltron and their allies. Victory or death.

“On your right!”

“On it!”

Sirens blared, shaking the floor, and reds and purples crashed on broken platforms. BOOM. More shrapnel, more rock. There was too much red in the air. A roar thundered, streaks of red, black, blue, yellow, green.

Keith threw himself into a dive, landing hard on the broken open tunnel below, whistles of blasts skating by his head. Move, move, move! Be faster, be smarter, don’t fall. Distantly, he heard the Castle firing and the answering explosions of Galra space crafts. Was that Voltron tearing through the hull, fully formed?

Zarkan’s voice boomed out in challenge and Keith barely caught Lotor’s shouted defiance. Above him. Keith ducked under a sword, driving up with his own. More red. Up!

Lightning CRACKED above, shattering the vacuum. Keith watched, horrified, as Voltron broke into five.

Pidge’s words rang in his head like a battle drum. _No matter what happens. We have each other. Bunch of humans—mostly, sorry, Keith—from Earth._

_No matter what._

Static stung his ears, and Keith gritted his teeth and vaulted up, dragging his bruised and injured body into the battlefield. He rolled immediately, barely dodging a volley of lightning. Damn, damn, damn. A quick glance told him it hadn’t been met for him but his hair frizzed with the static.

A thundering roar of _VOLTRON_ burst from only just ahead. Zarkon. Lotor, where was he? Keith frantically searched from his temporary shelter, spotting the wayward prince bound in otherworldly chains. Fangs showing, growling, tearing at his prison. It wouldn’t last long, surely. Surely.

Shadows fell upon the floor and Keith glanced up in time to see all five Lions SLAM into the walls keeping the chamber so safe from attack. Metal screeched in protest and glinting eyes emerged in the sucking holes. But Zarkon never fought alone. Magic—Keith vaguely recalled both Pidge and Coran’s voices—swirled into a hurricane and Haggar flung it with a shout.

The Lions might be near invulnerable—but their Paladins weren’t.

Keith would remember their screams in his dreams, plagued for by their suffering in the hollowness of sleep. He would feel it in his bones for years after and before this, tearing at his heart in a way so little could.

But right now, he could only register the scream from his own throat and his feet dashing across the broken floor and his hands, claws, tearing into Haggar. The surprise won him precious seconds—and precious silence—and he growled in the fallen Altean’s face, more Galra, more human than ever.

The cage holding Lotor splintered at his mother’s fractured control and he charged back into the fray, saving Keith from the blow of Zarkon’s sword. Rocks tumbled and mouths opened, and the five Paladins fell onto the chessboard. Keith didn’t hear Shiro’s shout—Haggar’s magic slammed Keith in the chest, clawing deep and tearing and Keith hit a wall and fell.

Sound merged, water his senses, too dull. Pain bubbled in his lungs. But this time he did hear someone, someone, someone call his name right before the magic fell like a guillotine on his right leg.

“ _KEITH—_!” Echoes of his name picked at the edges of his hearing. More steel, more fire, more lightning, more red, more purple. Keith raised his head, numb, blinking his eyes blearily through the agony.

God, they were beautiful. All of them. Terrifying and righteous. Allura. Lotor. Lance. Hunk. Pidge. Shiro. Shiro, Shiro, Shiro. So close to winning, so close to losing.

Then it happened.

It happened and Keith’s world fell into stark clarity. It happened and his pain faded in place of fire in his heart. Burning, burning, burning—Grief, fear, fear—It happened and Keith forgot his own injury, his leg staying behind, and Keith dragged himself by his nails across the floor.

It happened and Pidge screamed, followed shortly by Hunk, Lance, Allura. It happened and Haggar fell to her knees at her husband’s side. Tears, so many tears.

It happened and the battle was over.

It happened and Zarkon fell.

It happened, but so did Shiro.

Keith crawled, painstakingly slow. Every beat of his heart like thunder. His hands caught armor, cloth, and Keith heaved himself up onto Shiro’s chest. Red stained white armor. Static sparked from where an arm should be. There was a hole, gaping where Shiro’s stomach should be.

And Shiro had the audacity to smile up at Keith and raise his human hand to brush back black hair from a pale face.

“No, no, no, no, no…” Keith belatedly realised the plea fell from his own tongue, choking his throat and face wet with tears.

Everything quieted except for the terrible knowing smile on Shiro’s face and the rasping words that came with it.

“I’m sorry…”

“Stay with me, Shiro, fucking damnit, stay with me—we can fix this, put you in a pod, you’re going to be okay—”

“Keith…”

Keith shook his head adamantly and Shiro touched his cheek so softly and Keith felt something else break in his chest. There was something there on Shiro’s face that looked too much, too much like love and Keith’s eyes widened in too late, too late realisation.

But then Shiro’s hand fell and his gaze stilled. His heart stuttered to a stop.

And Keith screamed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so sorry................I swear this has a happy ending guys but hoo boi we’re in for the long haul now aren’t we


	3. A Promise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Grief was a blackhole that had swallowed Keith twice--for a world without Shiro isn't one worth living.

Shadows haunted him, coiling at his feet, clawing at his thoughts.  When he woke days after the battle, they followed him still, inhabiting his skin and crawling in his chest.  Keith was drowning under the familiar weight, that awful black hole that threatened to consume him and everything around him.  He had expected no reprieve the first time—fortune or fate perhaps the only reason there was one—but he knew now that no such end lay in sight.

 

In the moments of lucidity, still healing from the grievous injury and missing limb—Shiro, Shiro, we match now—Keith felt his mother’s hands through his hair, warm and gentle.  Her words couldn’t soothe nor be the balm to the pain wracking him but the company, just the company made the dark a little lighter. After all, last time he had spent his days in the desert, nothing but sand and dust and rock for friends.

 

The others, Pidge, Hunk, Lance, they had always been closer to each other than him—he didn’t fault them for their own ways of grieving: together.  But they had never understood him, not even now as they were burdened by the same weight of loss so heavy it felt like a whole galaxy. Yet, they knew, at least on some level, Pidge more than the rest, how  _ much _ this was costing Keith.  

 

He was visited by others, he knew, but their faces melded together against the veil fogging his vision in grey.  Allura almost looked like Lotor to his warped gaze, their pale hair and crescent moons shining in the dark. Coran left food to Krolia, leaving Keith in her and the Blades’ care.  Keith was assured he would get used to the weight of metal where once flesh resided—not the rest though, never the rest.

 

Sleep became his own private hell once more, brought worse by his body’s weakness.  Staring in the mirror now, Keith could see the hollows under his eyes hidden only by the curtain of untamed hair he had yet to comb.  It didn’t seem important. Nothing really did. There wasn’t a war to fight now, no Lions to chase in canyons. Instead, there was nothing but a vacuum and Keith was being swallowed whole.

 

He was not quite sure what led him to the private deck that let him view the stars.  Or, rather, he ignored the reason why for it stung too deeply at this time. So he sat at the edge of the abyss, staring into the void and the distant glimmer of stars.  If he closed his eyes just long enough, Keith swore he could feel a presence beside him, warm and cold, close and far. A hand on his shoulder. No words shared.

 

If he stared too long into the universe, he thought he could see that brief flash of white or the dark scar across a handsome face.  Absently, Keith traced a mirror across his own, pressing down to make his skin whiten for the brief second it took to make it seem real.

Thrusting himself to his feet, Keith stalked the halls, taking pains to avoid distant clamor or careful footfalls.  It was a single-minded journey, a destination in sight and the pulse of his heart thrumming with the black hole whirling.

 

They had kept the Lions in their hangars since their victory.  Marked off and under maintenance. One moreso than others. 

 

Staring up at the dark eyes of the Black Lion, Keith felt despair creep up inside him, threatening to break him again, again, again, again.  What was he doing here? Nothing could be done. Nothing! The first sob broke through the first wall and a second pummelled the next. A third threatened to deal the final blow.

 

Lights, glowing in the dark.  Keith pressed a hand over his mouth, shaking, just as the Black Lion came to life.  Its mouth opened. Unbidden, Keith climbed through. The interior lights lit at his passing, dimming as soon as he moved on.  The quiet thrum of a purr under his feet reminded him that this place was not a skeleton nor a grave—he hadn’t died in here, he had died in Keith’s arms—but a very much  _ alive _ Lion.

 

Seeing the controls was almost too much to bear but Keith sat down heavily, drawing his knees up to his chest and hugging himself tight.  The heavy comfort of the Black Lion fell over him, echoing his grief and Keith let himself cry once more in the arms of a comrade who had loved Shiro as much as himself.

 

Minutes, maybe hours passed.  No urgency, no call. Though a tickling at the back of his mind told him that should anyone had come looking for him made him doubt the Black Lion would respond and let him leave.  Its embrace felt possessive, protective, its other Paladin that still lived.

 

“It should have been me…” Keith croaked, voice hoarse from disuse and he felt the Lion stir. “Shi—He wasn’t supposed to—He wasn’t supposed to  _ leave _ .”

 

Again, went unsaid.

 

The Black Lion’s screens glimmered to violet life, echoes of images, of memories.  Keith watched, hypnotised by the sorrowful dance of Shiro, Shiro,  _ Shiro _ .  His face burned into his eyes and Keith reached out to one distant light and the Lion fell quiet to let that simple picture of Shiro stay.

 

He was smiling, laughing maybe.  He looked younger, more his age and not the Black Paladin, not the Champion.

 

Just Shiro.

 

“He—He gave up  _ so much _ for this shit—” Keith swallowed against the lump tearing in his throat. “First Kerberos, then the Galra, then Paladin then  _ this _ —We didn’t fucking deserve any of it.”

 

The Black Lion growled around him but Keith pressed on. 

 

“F-Fuck, he was only a few years older than the rest of us!  He wasn’t—He was supposed to  _ come back _ —” Come back to me—Keith’s fingers skated the edge of the hologram, over that scar that marred Shiro’s face. “God, he had the world ahead of him and the world fucking spat him out like  _ garbage _ .  Why—Why  _ him _ , Why Sh-Shiro of all fucking people?!  Couldn’t it have chosen someone else! Couldn’t the universe chosen some other fucking person!  Couldn’t it have chosen, God, couldn’t it have chosen  _ me _ instead?”

 

Keith pushed his hands against his eyes, pinning the pain building in his head. “Fuck—Kerberos, if I’d gone, I’d have been the one taken!  Shiro wouldn’t have had to become the fucking  _ Champion _ !  God, fucking, shit— _ fuck _ .”

 

The Black Lion swept into his consciousness, a thudding presence of stars, purple, and void.  Relief, not fear, overtook Keith then. This small blessing of nothing instead of a world without Shiro.  A world without Shiro wasn’t one worth saving; it wasn’t one worth living.

 

A thought pressed at his own.

 

_ It wasn’t supposed to be this way...would you change this future? _

 

“ _ Yes _ .” Keith hissed out.

 

_ You would take his place?  Do anything to keep this from happening? _

 

Yes, yes, yes.

 

Silence filled the void and Keith listened to his own shattered breaths and struggling heart.  Yes, he thought viciously, yes I would do anything to keep from this happening. Anything. Prisoner to the Galra be damned, he would never let Shiro fall to them.

 

The void swirled and the galaxies, no, the universe spread out before him.  There he was, standing on a plane of glass like water, a mirror of the stars.  The Black Lion knelt before him, head raised and proud of the cub it had nurtured for such a short time.  Leaning down, it bumped its head against Keith’s and Keith leaned against the cold, cold metal.

 

_ Bring back my cub _ , the Black Lion whispered.  

 

_ Bring him home. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and it begins.


End file.
